


There's an Ache in my Chest, A Heart waiting to Break

by thefrenchmistake



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, But I'm not giving it to him, Finnick deserved better, Gen, Gimme more Johanna, Hunger Games Tributes, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Underage Prostitution, Not A Fix-It, Pre-Canon, So much angst, The Capitol Sucks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-03
Updated: 2021-03-03
Packaged: 2021-03-16 13:55:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29825979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thefrenchmistake/pseuds/thefrenchmistake
Summary: At seventeen, Johanna comes out of the arena with blood soaking her hair and arms to the elbow, axe so tightly clenched in her hands they can’t tear it from her, teeth bared at everyone who dares to come near.
Relationships: Annie Cresta & Johanna Mason, Annie Cresta/Finnick Odair, Haymitch Abernathy & Johanna Mason, Johanna Mason & Finnick Odair, Johanna Mason & Peeta Mellark, Johanna Mason/Finnick Odair
Comments: 2
Kudos: 10





	There's an Ache in my Chest, A Heart waiting to Break

**Author's Note:**

> A couple no one else likes ? Sign me up again, it's starting to become a trend.

**_Prologue_ **

At seventeen, Johanna comes out of the arena with blood soaking her hair and arms to the elbow, axe so tightly clenched in her hands they can’t tear it from her, teeth bared at everyone who dares to come near.

Two hours later, she’s wearing more makeup than ever before, eyelashes so long they brush the bottom of her cheeks, her skin is spotless and her dress hugs her waist too tight and reveals too much cleavage, so she decides to wear it as an armor and turn her uneasiness into provocation. They can stuff her in any cloth they wish, but she can damn well make them as uncomfortable as possible, and she’s not above spurring a little trouble.

The interview with Flickerman is a fucking joke, nothing else. She plays a part and for the first time in her life, puts a false smile on her face.

“So, Johanna,” he smiles brightly at her and puts his hand on her knee. “How does it feel to be the victor ?”

“I’m not dead yet, so good, I guess.”

The crowd laughs, and Johanna hasn’t gritted her teeth that hard since her reaping.

“Ha !” Flickerman goose-laughs, throwing his head back like it’s the funniest thing he’s ever heard. His throat is exposed and she wonders, for a second, if it’d be worth it to slit it here and now.

She settle for imagining it, and her smile becomes a tinge more honest.

“I have to admit, we were all shocked when you won your Games, and in such a skillful way, too.”

“Quit talking like that or I’ll think you’d rather have had another victor, Ceasar.”

Laughs.

“So, what will you do now that you’re a victor, now that you can have anything you want ?”

What she wants is to never have been reaped in the first place; what she wants is for her hands to stop shaking, her tongue to stop tasting blood, her stomach to stop curling in on itself like a snake eating its own tail.

“Enjoy the small pleasures of the Capitol, I suppose.”

“And many pleasures there are, am I right folks ?”

The crowd goes a little crazy.

Johanna doesn’t know why yet, but she’ll learn soon enough.

**_Act One_ **

The party to celebrate the end of the games and her victory is more luxurious than any event she went to as a tribute. Victor is a privileged title, she supposes.

Her hair falls all the way down to her hips, and she’s grateful for its length hiding her back, mainly exposed by her red dress. On seeing the color, she almost refused to wear the dress; blood splashed before her eyes, be it her own, her fellow tribute, her victims.

Everyone’s blood, except the Capitol’s.

Maybe that’s why she puts it on. Knowing the dress and her newly-earned title will make her one of the centers of attention doesn’t bother her quite as much as it should; she’ll make them pay in her own way, will parade the innocents blood before them all night.

The party is a nauseating ocean of people, heady perfumes, more and more food, a swirl of expansive and over the top tuxes and skirts and hats and jewels that burn her eyes for hours onwards.

It makes her sick, but she does her best to eat like a savage, smiling with bloody teeth at those who dare approach. She bats her eyelashes and offers sweet nothings to try and keep what’s left of her soul, though she’s not one for religion.

But she’ll try to salvage what she can, she supposes.

After a few displeasing encounters (for them, not her), people take the hint and she’s mostly left alone by the buffet, throwing back glass after glass in order to try and ignore Snow’s presence a few feet away, and the victors’ and literally each and every person who cheered against her when she went into the arena.

A strong scent of alcohol precedes a warm presence at her side, and Johanna turns her face with her teeth bared like a wolf.

The man doesn’t seem impressed.

“Nice little trick you had up your sleeve.”

“What ?”

“In the arena,” he explains like it’s an evidence, piling up food -petits fours, they called them- in his hand and his pockets.

She glares. Scrunches up her nose. When she fails to answer, the drunk rolls his eyes.

“I’m Haymitch A…”

“I know who you are.”

“Now now, don’t flatter me.”

“What do you want ?”

A hoarse burst of laughter escapes him and he doesn’t bother to hide his grin when he continues, waving his flask in her face until she swats it away :

“I wanted to congratulate you, Mason. You’re a victor now. You had a good little strategy going on, didn’t you ?”

“Maybe I just got lucky.”

Haymitch snorts, and it’s a testament of his despise for the system when he says :

“No one that gets their name pulled out is ever lucky. The lucky ones die in the arena.”

That’s a saying, known by the Victors only, that she will carry every single second she spends in the Capitol.

(Finnick will whisper it to her at night, and she will whisper it back like a promise when it’s nothing but resentment. She won’t even know if she’s glad to have lived anymore.)

When she eventually dares to look around the room and face what the rest of her life looks like, she’s met with Finnick Odair’s laugh and golden chest eyed by all the people, and she thinks : no, no one left alive is lucky.

Johanna restrains from spitting in President Snow’s face as he crowns her victor, and with the few instincts of self-preservation she has left she manages to stroll to the bar and rip a bottle from the outraged bartender.

He scurries off when she glares too hard, and the rhum burns her throat too much, but she keeps drinking anyway. Maybe something can get her numb, finally. Maybe she can stop seeing Snow’s face, feeling the blood on her skin like a disease creeping up, and crave her axe in her hands.

She wouldn’t bet on it.

“Nice dress.”

She abruptly turns around and is assaulted by miles of golden skin and blindingly white teeth.

“God,” she bursts out, thrown back.

“Hello to you too. Sugar-cube ?” He offers her amiably.

Blinking the shock away, Johanna crosses her arms on the bar and stares Odair down.

“The hell do _you_ want ?”

“To congratulate you,” he says like it’s an evidence, and she begins to notice a trend between victors; they say the word congratulate more like a curse, like it holds an ominous meaning.

Once again, she’s not one for omens and superstition, so she scoffs at it.

“Right.”

Watching her take another swig of rum doesn’t seem to faze him, and she narrows her eyes at his flawless crooked smile that must have taken years to perfect. She’s half-impressed half-repulsed by the deception of it. His eyes scan her up and down, and someone in the Capitol probably would’ve felt flattered, but she’s been out of the Games for less than two days, and she recognizes someone checking for weapons and weaknesses when she sees it. Then, his eyes scan the crowd.

“Would you walk with me ?”

Johanna’s tempted to tell him to fuck off, yet a quick glance at the company she’d be forced to mix with after his departure pushes her to answer otherwise.

“And suffer your lovers’ death glares ? Yes please.”

He laughs once, like it’s against his better judgement, before jerking his head to the side, indicating the direction their walk should take.

“Aren’t you worried about your reputation ?” She says, inflicting as much venom in her voice as she can, a bit disappointed when he doesn’t even flinch, simply smiles broader. “They’re gonna think we’re fucking.”

“Better for both of us if they believe that,” he states simply enough, but with a hint of seriousness that puts her on edge. There’s still a smile on his face, seemingly charming and easy-going, and he greets every person they cross with a nod, at ease amongst the sharks like she could never be.

After a few minutes of this circus, once Finnick has efficiently stopped talking, Johanna gets it.

He’s taking her somewhere to talk safely, and they need an alibi to protect them from the eyes and ears of the Capitol.

Allowing a sultry smile to shape her lips, she lays her hand on Finnick’s arm, feeling it tense under her touch until he glances at her and relaxes, going so far as putting his own hand on her lower back. It’s too warm, too much a witness of the Capitol’s comfort, it reminds her of the thickness of blood.

“Don’t kill me,” he whispers in her ear right as he tugs her in a dark corner of the corridor and pushes her against the wall. He was right to give her a warning, cause even with it she’s seconds away from bashing his head in, Capitol favorite or not.

“What the fuck are you doing ?” She seethes through a smile so fake it hurts her cheeks, for the cameras she knows are scattered around the mansion and the people passing just _a few feet away_.

“Fortifying our alibi.”

His lips brush her neck. Asshole.

“I will punch you,” she threatens, fist already formed and ready to go.

She feels his huff right where her neck meets her shoulder and resists recoiling. Odair is not stupid, and she doesn’t exactly get hung up on reputations, so she believes he has a good reason for doing this whole act.

He better, or her fist won’t be his only problem.

“You can try,” he mutters, “but you’ll get sued.”

“I bet it’d be worth it.”

“Probably,” he answers cheerfully, and Johanna clenches her jaw, yanks his hair back until he hisses against her skin. “Just… Go with it, please.”

The sincere desperation of his last word takes her by surprise, and so she allows her hold on his curls to loosen some, allows him to grip her waist and then drag her back into the crowd, a dazzling smile on his face full of white teeth that assault her vision seen from so close. She allows him to lead her through the too-curious people and the few whistles and the whispers, channeling her anger all the way out the Mansion, all the way to his fucking _room_ , of all places.

Once the door is close behind them and he turns around, she slaps him with all her strength.

He curses loudly, and the sight of Finnick Odair, golden boy from Four, prize of the Capitol, looking up at her with wide eyes and a hand against his cheek while his perfected image shatters with every curse he spits does something to her.

“Holy shit, you’re strong,” he says, less like he’s surprised and more like he’s impressed.

“Axes don’t fly themselves into someone’s head,” she answers distantly, taking in the loft they’re standing in. A couch is a few steps away, and looks absolutely delightful after an evening stuck in these heels, so she lets herself fall heavily in it. Refusing to show how comfortable the couch is, she stares at Odair, crossing her arms on her chest. “Now what the hell was that shit you pulled ?”

Odair doesn’t meet her eye, which might be a first tonight. Instead of answering, he walks towards the table -probably mahogany, she muses- where a fancy bottle of alcohol looks untouched and pours them both a drink. It’s not a good sign. Once he’s passed her a glass, he chooses to sit in the chair before her, and not next to her on the couch. He’s still not looking at her.

“Do you know what happens next ?”

Johanna snorts.

“What, like, existentially ?”

“No. No, more like in the near-future.”

“Look, Odair,” she begins, trying to keep herself contained before remembering she doesn’t have to contain herself; she’s out of the fucking games, she won, and there’s no need to be polite anymore. “I don’t have much fucking patience left, so get to the point or I leave this room right now.”

His jaw clenches and she realizes it’s probably the first sign of irritation or frustration or whatever negative emotion he’s feeling that he has shown. It sends a jolt of satisfaction through her. Eventually, he stops his staring contest with his drink and looks her in the eye.

“You’re a victor now.”

“No shit.”

“You know what Snow will ask of you ?”

That makes her narrow her eyes. She’s so tired of politics, so tired of Snow, so tired of Odair and his contrite expression like he’s _concerned_.

“I figured,” she says like it doesn’t matter. She did realize what would be asked, realized it around the same time she was first introduced to the Capitol, when she crossed Cashmere and Gloss in corridors they had nothing to do in, the girl’s eyes brimming with tears as she held her brother up, unable to hide the marks on both their bodies. She figured it out when she saw Finnick Odair for the first time, with greedy hands touching him like he belonged to them, with greedy eyes watching like he was a damn performance, a trophy to be possessed.

Johanna figured it out a while ago, albeit not the details, and she swore to herself she would never be put in that position.

“Why did you bring me here ?”

“I… There’s a…. A tradition, in the Capitol,” he admits, gagging a little on the word although he’s trying not to show it.

“What tradition ?”

Her heart is beating too fast, because all of a sudden this feels too real, this feels like she exchanged the arena for another cage, for another puppet master to pull her strings. The instinct to run is creeping up on her, tingling in her legs, but Odair’s eyes pin her in place.

“The previous victors are supposed to introduce you to this new life in the Capitol,” he finally says with a wry smile that kinda makes her sick, and she wonders how many persons he’s had to…. _Introduce_ since he was fourteen.

“So why aren’t you fucking me right now ?”

Odair has the nerve to laugh, throaty and low, the opposite of his persona’s thundering laugh.

“Thought I’d give you a heads up, considering your reputation precedes you. I was worried you’d bash my head in.”

“That’s fair.”

Her throat is too dry and her head spins a little, so Johanna finishes her drink and pretends it’s the alcohol’s fault.

“Besides, I don’t want to….”

“Shame.”

Fuck her. Her mouth is out of control tonight.

Odair arches an elegant eyebrow in her direction, a small smirk on his lips like this is a perfectly normal conversation.

“Do you actually want us to sleep together ?”

“I mean,” she shrugs, “if Snow is gonna kill me anyway, I might as well enjoy my last night of freedom.”

“Didn’t you listen to me ? He’s not gonna…”

“Slowest way to die, and all that,” she interrupts, waving hand around. “The clothes can be as luxurious as you want, doesn’t change the fact that they choke you. Well, not that you would know,” she taunts with a glance at his exposed chest.

“That’s a dangerous game you’re playing.”

“I’m tired of games.”

She puts her glass on the couch beside her, not giving a shit if it spills over and stains the cushions, and stands up. In two strides, she’s before him. Odair doesn’t protest, just looks at her like he’s awaiting her next move. Johanna doesn’t really know what that should be; come closer and forget about everything that happened outside for a while, or just leave this fucking room and forget everything that happened inside forever.

She chooses the former.

Odair’s lips are warm, like all of him, and so she puts her hands on his chest, on his shoulders, lets her tongue taste his to see if it reminds her of a sea she’s never seen, just smelled. Odair grabs her waist, puts his hand on her back and it doesn’t disgust her like it did before. Here, in the small privacy of this expensive room, there are no eyes and facade, and maybe that’s why she pushes herself closer against him.

His mouth is all business, expertise and efficiency, rendering her a bit weak in a few instants.

Johanna is not a virgin, but a rough fuck with a lumberjack or a quickie in the woods when she’s supposed to be working doesn’t have anything to do with the skill Finnick uses. And it’s a true skill; seems to be shapes rehearsed, delicate spots memorized, a twist of his tongue that has her gripping him tighter, his hand tugging at her hair to shift their mouths in a better position.

Maybe that’s the perfection of it that doesn’t sit right with her, that spurs her to take a step back.

Finnick looks at her curiously.

“I don’t want the Capitol’s victor,” she states harshly. She’s right up in his face, so she has a front row seat to the temporary confusion, and the flash of understanding, and then his curt nod. He leans forward but Johanna takes a step back again and raises an eyebrow.

“I want to,” he assures her, stepping to her with grabby hands and hungry mouth, so she allows him to kiss her again. This time it’s different, and it shows. Finnick doesn’t hold back in a perfunctory way, on the contrary. He’s intent but sweet and rushed at the same time, like he wants to taste every part of her, like it’s a craving and not an obligation.

Then his fingers follow the trail of her spine, pressing in the skin until they reach the end of the dress, right above her ass and she makes a noise of amusement against his mouth.

“Are you gonna get a move on or…”

“Would be a shame to rip such a wonderful dress.”

Johanna stares at him.

“You know what ? That’s actually a brilliant idea.”

Finnick frowns, but a few minutes later he’s laughing as Johanna lights a fire in the hearth -there is a damn hearth, what a fucking sham this government is- and throws her ripped dress in it.

It doesn’t catch fire right away, so she takes the poker and presses the tissue in the fire, cursing when the flames suddenly grow and lick at her fingers.

Finnick laughs, and she stares, and then she chuckles too. They throw the bottle of whisky or whatever that was in it, cheer at the sudden outburst.

They watch it turn to ashes, and when they’re done laughing they talk, and while they talk they stare into the red coals, and shed a few tears, and when they’re done talking they drink and talk some more.

Johanna doesn’t know when they fall asleep, didn’t think it would be that easy to forget what happened in the Games during the night or when she had her back turned.

But she falls asleep, and the smell of Finnick keeps the nightmares at bay.

**_Act Two_ **

Killing her family is not a warning. It’s a punishment. For that reason only, she swears to wreck havoc in their perfect universe of faux semblants. She never thought she’d find a partner in perfect golden boy Finnick Odair.

They thought burning her family would extinguish the fire she was consumed by; they were wrong.

She wouldn’t let them be right.

But she lets herself grieve them, and she lets herself break and rage and destroy most of this cell they call a room. The moment she looks at the perfume bottles, at the paintings on the walls, at the rich furniture, and realizes that this is it, this is where she’ll spend the rest of her life -there’s no home left to go to-, she lets herself cry.

Finnick finds her like that, sobbing, nails digging into this stupid modern art painting, emptying bottles of perfume and alcohol alike in the sink, stepping on broken glass.

Johanna hears him come in, and doesn’t care. She lets him tug at her arm, lets him hold her close, her tears rolling down his chest like simple water from the ocean.

She hates him for it, she loves him for it, but most of all she hates herself. And Snow; the Devil only knows how much she hates him.

“I killed them because of my pride,” she states once all tears are shed and there’s nothing left but pain and hollowness. Finnick clutches her against him, like he can make her forget. She wishes he could.

“No,” he answers in her hair, but she wasn’t looking for an answer, she wasn’t looking for absolution yet he gives it to her all the same. “You were doing what you do best; trying to survive.”

“But you did. You survived.”

His fingers dig in the skin of her arm, too hard, but Johanna likes the pain in its difference from the beast crawling at her insides. His nose buries deeper in her hair, and she can imagine his eyes close painfully like he allows only when he thinks no one is watching.

“Not in the ways that matter.”

“Secrets are invaluable,” Finnick whispers to her the first time he kisses her stomach. She tells him to shut up, but the lesson will remain in her mind for her entire life.

And their secret, made of long nights and breaking points and nightmares as well as dreams and idle hopes, is the most guarded of them all.

They are careful with each other, always, but Finnick whispers to her the darkest secrets that those who try to claim him fill his ears with every time he’s in their bed, and Johanna works behind the scenes; a rumor here or there, a Capitol lover a bit too rough finding himself kicked down a notch, or fired. They make a good team, he says one day, and she laughs at him and at the stupid notion. There’s no team in the Capitol, lest it be destroyed.

But yeah, she thinks once he’s fallen asleep beside her. They make a good team.

Finnick Odair is a good person.

As much as one can be in this piece of shit of a society that is Panem, anyway.

Despite the masks, despite the charades, despite the lies and the pedestal he stands on, despite the trident clutched between his fingers that become claws and the blood he has on his hands from the age of fourteen, Finnick is a good person.

On the other hand, from every angle and every notion, Johanna is not a good person. She is too rough, too. blunt and too angry for anyone to consider her good. Finnick has the best strategy for that ; sweet talk and gentle smiles, charming people and opening them up for him until it’s the moment to strike. But his charade makes him, paradoxically, more trustworthy than her honesty.

Even knowing all that he’s done, all that the Games and the bullshit following turnedhim into, Johanna still thinks ; he is a good person.

Maybe that’s why she lets him get so close. Or maybe it’s for everything else, all the wrong reasons.

But then again, he lets her get close as well.

They’ve known each other a year the first time she sees him break and crack open.

One of his tributes is dead.

From the comfort of the luxurious couch they sit in, with a bottle of expensive liquor in hand, Finnick smiles darkly at the Tv displaying the young man, open wound from navel to neck offering them glimpses of the intestins.

Johanna is not one for comfort. But both her tributes died on the first day, so she takes his hand in hers and isn’t surprised when he squeezes so hard it hurts.

She’s always been used to pain, though. 

And they drink and drink, because without it they could never talk truthfully, they could never forget about the dangers being vulnerable brings. She drinks to have an excuse, to believe it’s the alcohol’s fault and not hers or Finnick’s twisted kindness, when she watches the tributes die meaningless deaths and she lets her guard down.

“I’ve killed so many people,” she whispers like it could take the weight off the admission. It doesn’t. Nothing does. “And I know I didn’t have a choice, it was to survive. But then why do I feel so guilty ?”

“Because they were just trying to survive, too.”

She hates how he does that so easily, how he tells her things like they’re universal truths and not inner explanations for all the layers of fucked up Panem is.

She hates that hearing him speak makes her want to follow him anywhere. Most of all, she hates that she believes him.

(Then Snow threatens her through sugar-coated words that hold the emptiness of the world, and Johanna doesn’t have the luxury to believe in the safety Finnick seemed to represent when there are fingers curling around her neck forcing her down on a lust-lidded mouth)

**_Act Three_ **

_Don’t be dead, don’t be dead, don’t be dead._

Logically, she knows Snow wouldn’t have the golden boy Finnick Odair killed, but she’s been deceived by the asshole too many times to trust any of her instinct, so when Finnick eventually opens the door, a bit bruised but laced with sunshine like always, Johanna doesn’t waste a second before wrapping her arms around him and holding him too close. Instantly, he brings her inside and closes the door; there are always watching eyes inside the Capitol.

She kisses him roughly, like she wants to forget, and he responds but it takes him a while to realize that the way she’s kissing him echoes the way he does it when he’s had a very bad night.

Except she’s not supposed to have bad nights.

He pulls away from her, his eyes already brimming with horror, and Johanna closes hers.

“Don’t you dare,” she spits at him, and then his hand is on her throat, gentle and caring. Yet the night’s lack of air makes her panic a bit, suffocating between silk sheets with a forceful hand in her hair and greedy fingers crawling inside her skin.

“Johanna.”

“Don’t, Finnick.”

Her voice wavers more than she would like.

Her forehead comes to rest on his chest, and Johanna tries to match her breathing to his. She doesn’t need to look up to know how tortured his features are, how broken he seems; her nails dig in his hips.

He’s alive.

He’s alive, and Mags is alive, and Annie is alive, even if Johanna’s family is not.

Annie, Annie, beautiful and innocent Annie who has survived the arena against all odds and who will survive this even if Johanna must die each night for it.

They were so cautious. Apparently not enough.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispers to her once he thinks she’s asleep, but sleep seems like a far-fetched dream now that her nights promise to be full of nightmares.

Johanna presses her eyes shut until tears fade into the pillow.

Once, Finnick stumbles through the door with wounds she never thought possible of suffering from sex (more like rape), and he can’t stop her when she bolts out of the room.

A Capitol asshole is nearly strangled that night, and Johanna wears the marks of her punishment for weeks onwards. Asking for something in the Capitol, be it common decency or respect ? Never a good idea.

She never regrets it.

But she has to think about it more often than not, especially when Haymitch, drunk as always, seeks her out again. He does that quite a lot, for a victor who hates the Capitol, and he tells her once it’s because she doesn’t take any shit, gives as good as she gets, and doesn’t remind him of the people he lost. What an unlikely relationship they have, born from spite and hatred and an unexpected kinship.

“You can’t fuck with the system,” he tells her that night. It’s muffled by his glass of bourbon, but she hears it all the same.

“Why not ?”

It’s just for kicks, just to any hot, because she knows he’s right. Oddly enough, Haymitch is quite wise beneath the layers of alcohol.

He huffs. She scrunches up her nose.

“You can’t fuck with the system, because it’ll fuck you right back, ten times worse. Even if you don’t, they’ll make you pay the same price, like they did with me.”

And maybe she gets it now. Maybe she gets him.

(Memories of her family flash before her eyes, her brothers’ wild laugh, her father putting an axe in her hand, the smell of wood and fire and the burnt bodies she didn’t get to see).

When she steps back in her room, he’s waiting for her like an oak, and immediately surges forward to chase the taste of whisky in her mouth. It makes her a little sick, and a lot angry, so she turns her head to the side until he leans back, glares at him.

Finnick places a curl behind her ear, and she swats it away violently, almost growling:

“Don’t do that.”

He obeys; his smile slips. Long ago, he promised not to let the manipulation of the Capitol ever take a toll on them, ever have a place in their odd relationship. When they have nothing else, they have the certainty of honesty between them, which is the most valuable thing one can have within the Capitol.

“What do you want me to do ?”

“I don’t want _anything_ from you.”

For some, those words are an insult. For Finnick, it’s a blessing. The tension in his shoulders slip away, head bent low, and then his forehead presses against her shoulder, his shaky puffs of air rippling on her collarbone.

Johanna doesn’t get scared, she gets angry; unbelievably angry, to the point of shaking, to the point where Finnick has to restrain her in order to keep her axe away from Snow’s head, to the point of tearing his skin open with her nails and crying silently in his shoulder when all he answers with is gentleness.

Maybe she can give that to him now.

She pushes his shoulder back a little, just enough so he lifts his head up and looks her in the eye.

Her tongue burns at the shadows in his irises, at the shimmering that is the farthest thing away from tears. The lines of his face are a tragedy, like Achilles’ legend painted gold to cover up the grim of blood and death.

Her teeth grit to keep the words contained.

This is what Finnick craves, has always craved; to forget that all the ocean he spends his time surrounded by won’t do a thing for the blood on his hands, will only rub salt in the wounds; to forget that the beautiful and kind girl that should have never survived probably didn’t really; to forget that he’s torn in half, to forget the damages done to him by the Capitol and done to others by him.

“What ?” He asks, but not like he wants an answer, more like he’s scared of it.

She considers him for a moment, before shaking her head.

“What I want to say, you’re no ready to hear, and what you wanna hear I can’t say.”

“Since when are you a fucking philosopher, Jo,” he snorts, but it’s lost in the broken edge of his voice. Johanna gives him a smile nonetheless, just to lessen his misery. He has a weird obsession with her smile, with her laugh, with the flitting slivers of happiness he can capture.

(It echoes her own obsession with his, but they never put words on any of it).

**_Act 4_ **

Finnick and she watch the 12s play a part for the camera, and Johanna laughs until she can’t breathe, until Finnick wraps his hand around her calf and says :

“I’m almost impressed.”

“They’ve got you beat at that game, player boy.”

He crooks and eyebrow at her and Johanna smiles, impressed in spite of herself at the carefully crafted fantasy these two display for an audience they hate.

Both she and Finnick know that too well.

“But yes, they’re impressive. Hell, they might actually win this shit.”

“You know, it’s the louder I’ve heard you laugh in a long time. I think they already won.”

Johanna pushes his face away, and his chuckle is hoarse, something born of honesty and long forgotten innocence, so she kisses him just to see how it tastes.

It’s easy to love someone who’s ready to die for something bigger than himself, for other people, for stupid concepts such as love.

Johanna doesn’t have anyone worth dying for, and some days she’s thankful for that. Other days, Finnick takes her hand in his in a rare display of affection, smiles with those little dimples that appear only when it’s honest, and looks at her with eyes that are too green to be the ocean’s, and Johanna damns it all to hell. Because she knows that one day, she’ll have to choose, she’ll have to save him or save herself.

So she drinks to forget those dimples and those eyes and the man too wild to belong to anything but the ocean.

She drinks, but she cannot forget the hope in his voice when he spoke to her of the Revolution, of Katniss becoming a symbol the people will rally behind, of Snow’s anticipated death and Plutarch’s plan.

Johanna curses Finnick until his name blurs in shapeless waves of alcohol.

And the morning after, she accepts to go to hell for him (but maybe it’s also for Annie, Mags, Haymitch, Panem, and even for herself).

She calls his home the day the Quarter Quell is announced.

He doesn’t answer.

(After his and Mags’ reaping, he’ll call. There isn’t much to say about the conversation.)

The last time she sees Finnick before the Quarter Quell is two days before.

It’s not sweet, and it’s not good; it’s tainted with the blood not yet-spilled, with the knowledge that Glove and Cashmere will do anything to slit their throats, with the fear they refuse to show but know is ever-present.

She’d rather they don’t talk, but Finnick is panicky enough with the Rebellion plan, with Johanna in danger, with Annie out of his sight. She was never good at not indulging him.

So Johanna tolerates his rambling, tolerates the hand he lays on her neck to bring her into him, and breathes in his warmth.

She lands a kiss on him, because she can, because it doesn’t mean the same as others, because it’s a reassurance and a promise and a farewell all at once and he kisses her back.

His back is a sight that has become familiar, but she needs to see his face one last time and so she calls him back. Watching his eyes go from freezing blue to the darkest depths of the ocean, she thinks she’d be happy if that’s the last thing she ever sees.

But they’re not there yet.

“Don’t die.”

Finnick nods.

“I’ll see you in the arena.”

Maybe he won’t.

But they don’t say that.

Johanna honestly can’t be blamed for snapping when Everdeen comes at her on the beach in that fucking arena, cant be blamed for yelling at her, can’t be blamed for elbowing Finnick as hard as she can when he drags her away.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” he tries to soothe her on the beach, but she wants to slap him because nothing is fucking ok, Blight just died and Everdeen is so oblivious and Finnick’s hands are warm on her arms but Mags isn’t by his side and she is confronted to the fact that she’s really dead although this was their exit ticket.

“Let me go,” she snaps, because Johanna can’t show weakness in the arena, can’t show anything real, and Finnick’s hold is too dangerous. But he doesn’t do as she asks, even when she repeats it, preferring to lead her into water.

Water always was his element, so she’s not that uneasy when he pushes her in the sea. She kicks him in the shin for good measure, though. His hand pours water on her head as if he wants to wash the blood away, yet the gesture is too superficial not to hide something else.

“I’ve got you,” he promises in her ear so she knows it’s not an act, and that’s the only thing Johanna needs to settle down.

His hands are hot, his stupid golden bracelet digging into her waist, reminding her of what they’re fighting for. It’s easy to forget, once the canons go off, once blood starts to spill and survival instincts kick in.

But Finnick is an anchor to the ground, to reality. Finnick is too bright to be anything than a lighthouse.

Johanna is always fighting against everyone, against the world, but now she’s fighting for something, and that’s a novelty; she’s fighting for her country, though she knows she owes it nothing. She’s fighting for her dead family, for the people of her district, for Annie, and she’s fighting for Finnick most of all.

She’s fighting for a life he deserves, free from prostitution, free from fear.

Johanna has never fought so hard.

Her fingers grip his arms in what must be a painful hold, but he doesn’t complain, simply loosens his arms so she has room to move.

“How did Mags die ?”

Finnick flinches, and she could feel guilty but she doesn’t believe in guilt once in the arena. There’s only anger at the Capitol, at Snow, and at the occasional tributes.

“Poisonous fog.”

“Woah,” she mocks, a bleeding smile on her lips, “they really went all out, uh ? How many times did you almost die ?”

“I don’t know, 3 ?”

“Ah, I’ve got you beat,” she chuckles darkly (Blight’s fuming face is still engraved in her mind, the smell still plastered to her nostrils and throat).

“We’re gonna make it.”

He slipped, and she can’t blame him but she does all the same. He doesn’t get to slip, not in here, he doesn’t get to think they’ll be alive even as thousands of people are watching and think only one will make it out. He can’t let anything known, can’t show he cares.

She digs her nails in his shoulder.

“No we’re not.”

By the stiffening of his body, he knows what she means.

Pulling herself away, she doesn’t spare him a glance, and she walks to the beach where Peeta is overwatching Everdeen and Wiress, and where Beetee is drawing something in the sand.

She doesn’t turn to see if he follows (he does, though; he always does.)

Johanna wonders how many secrets he hasn’t been able to keep from her, and how many he will never speak aloud. She wonders about Annie, if she’s safe. She wonders how many people he has slept with are watching the games rooting for his death.

She wonders too much for her liking, since he’s put this idea of rebellion in her head. The seed has grown and it’s too late to rip it out.

**_Final Act_ **

There’s not much to say about being taken from the arena with Peeta.

Their time in captivity goes at it always does since the games. Trying not to die.

Peeta talks a lot, until he doesn’t.

Johanna clutches at the memory of Finnick, of Annie, even of Haymitch, but in the end she doesn’t need them to do what she does best : survive.

(She doesn’t give the Capitol anything, because now that she has ammunition against them for the first time in years, she’s not about to let it slip, no matter how many times they try to drown her or burn he alive, no matter Peeta’s screams, no matter anything other than having the Capitol crumble and burnt to ashes).

Shame burns bright in her stomach when she sees his face for the first time in months. She has nothing to be ashamed of, on the contrary, she has survived and resisted and done what he told her to do : kept all her secrets close to her chest until they were part of herself.

But Annie is the first face she sees once she is coherent enough to crave some more drugs in order to dull the pain.

As always her smile is kind despite the cracks at the corners of her mouth and the dark bruises under her eyes, stretching and stretching like her nightmares and her crazy fits.

“Hey Jo.”

“You okay ?” Is the first thing out of her mouth.

Annie’s smile wavers.

“Yes. Finnick stepped out, but he’ll come back any moment.”

“Crying his eyes out ?”

“Probably. With good reason, though.”

The snort she lets out hurts so bad she feels like chocking, then Annie is there, tilting the cup at her lips and helping her drink. It’s the first gentle touch she has experienced in a long, long time.

When Finnick surges to bring her in his chest, ignoring her frail fists punching his back without any strength, she is reminded that it won’t be the last.

The days blend together, colorless, dull, waiting for something to happen without being able to do anything about it. Then the wedding, which the only time some positive emotion crawls its way out, stretches her lips in a smile.

They deserve it so bad.

Then Everdeen leaves (with her help, but no one asks so she won’t tell, even if Haymitch eyes her suspiciously every time they cross paths), and Finnick comes to her in the middle of the night.

There’s no doubt as to where he’s going, especially when her eyes spot the trident slung across his back.

“Did you tell Annie ?”

Finnick nods, head bent forward so his gaze meets the ground. He looks ridiculous.

“Nothing will happen to her.”

His shoulders slump. It’s a promise, he knows it; she’ll look after Annie no matter what.

Finnick knows that, which must be one of the reasons he sits by her legs on the bed, shifting the trident so it won’t hinder his movements.

“I know.”

“Please act as if I have some surprising qualities left.”

“Aw, Jo. You’re the most surprising of them all.”

Johanna is spiteful and jagged, and so she punches him in the arm.

“You’re an asshole,” he retorts with a hand rubbing at his arm, but he’s fighting a rare smile down so she allows it.

“Thanks, I learned from the best.”

“Yeah. But we have to learn something else now, don’t we ?”

“And what’s that ?” She asks, already rolling her eyes cause she knows his answer will be too corny for her to handle.

“We have to learn how to live now.”

She mimes a gag, and he laughs.

(Those are the last words he says to her)

When Finnick dies, Johanna goes to Annie against her every instinct.

Then, when the storm has passed and Annie has finally dropped half-dead to sleep, Johanna goes back to her room.

She looks at the wall for a minute, an hour, and then it’s morning but it doesn’t make sense.

So she doesn’t get up, and no one comes to her; she prefers it that way.

Peeta is the first one to say the words when they meet again; it’s a hug and a whispered “you were right” and a softer “I’m so sorry”.

Later, she’ll ask him what he’s sorry about, because she wants someone to say it out loud; no one said his name before her since they announced he was dead, so much that she took to whispering it every evening, laid down in her bed like she could still hear his voice calling out to her on the beach.

Peeta will look her in the eye, for which she’s grateful, and say :

“I’m sorry Finnick died for us, and that we couldn’t even bury him.”

Johanna nods, and it’s only when Peeta tucks her under his arm that she realizes she’s crying. She gladly accepts his embrace, but not his words.

“It doesn’t matter,” she replies, but it has trouble making its way between the tight space in her throat, tearing it open as it escapes.

“It matters.”

“It doesn’t,” Jo snaps, all anger and pain and a sick twist to her stomach, “he’s dead. The dead don’t matter, except in the arena.”

“We’re not in the arena anymore.”

They’re always in the arena. No matter where they go, who rules, what they make with their lives, that fucking arena always comes back for them. They can’t escape, and they can’t win, and Johanna cries harder but doesn’t tell Peeta lest it breaks down the progress he’s made.

“I hope you’re right,” she lies instead.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey everyone, thank you so much for reading (I hope you're not bowling your eyes out, cause I sure was). Kudos/Comment/constructive criticism are welcome in this house cause I like to feel I'm not alone in this ship Angst


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